Avengers Initiative
by zeta-tauri
Summary: AU - A wave of terrorist activity in Manhattan is the reason why Colonel Nick Fury, a decorated ex-army man working for the FBI has assembled a team of skilled detectives to solve the murders and stop the killer before more deaths occur. The investigation takes a personal turn when the brother of one Detective Odinson is implicated in the murders.
1. Chapter 1

Every Friday without fail, after their shift, Danish-born, mostly Harlem-raised Detective Inspector Theodor Odinson and his partner, Queens born, Queens raised, Maria Hill would go to a small restaurant near Bleecker Street Station for fish tacos and a small taste of what it was to be normal; something which for them, meant to not have to spend their hours staring at some of the most grisly and violent crimes Manhattan had to offer. They only had one rule about their dinners together, and that was that they did not talk about work. For this short time, once a week, they were no longer police officers, sworn to uphold the law. They were civilians, enjoying the civilian pleasures of good food, bad beer, and jokes of questionable taste.

"_House _ended," Maria said casually, wrinkling her nose at something unidentifiable on her plate. "Did you see that?" She pushed the Unidentified Fried Object to one side.

"I did not," Theodor said. "What is _House_?"

Maria took a small moment to determine whether or not Theodor was being deliberately obtuse.

"You know. _House_?" She asked.

Theodor shrugged and smiled. "No. What is it?"

"It's a show," Maria said. Theodor gave her the same blank, unknowing look.

"Thor, do you even own a television?" she asked.

"I do not," said Theodor. "I never saw the point in it."

"So what do you do to relax?" She took a chip from her partner's plate and dipped it in the salsa on her own plate.

"I go to the gym," Theodor said simply. He took a bite of his taco and made a face. "They have changed cooks here."

"That's not relaxing," Maria argued. "That's the opposite of relaxing." She pushed her plate toward the centre of the table. "We'll come back next week and if it's still awful, we'll find some-place else. Your turn to pay."

Theodor nodded in agreement and got to his feet, pulling his wallet out from his trousers. He tossed enough cash onto the table to cover the cheque and a decent tip, and taking one more chip from his plate, began to walk outside.

"So, what is this _House _then? Tell me about it," he said as the pair of them stepped out into the open air of a Manhattan evening.

"It's sort of Sherlock Holmes in a hospital, curing people instead of solving crimes," Maria explained. She pulled a pack of gum from her handbag, offering the customary stick to Theodor.

"Sherlock Holmes?" he asked.

Maria felt a sudden urge to hit his very thick skull with a very large book. "You do know Sherlock Holmes, right?" she asked.

Theodor laughed. "Yes, of course. I read it as a boy, when I was learning English."

"Give it another read. It might stick this time."

"I shall do that," said Theodor agreeably.

They began walking toward the station where they would part ways and take the train in opposite directions. The conversation began to turn to a light-hearted argument over whether or not Theodor needed a television, and if he ever got one, where he might find space for it in his small apartment, as they waited for the signal to change to cross the street. A taxi honked at a bicycle courier, and a loud explosion rocked through the streets, causing the buildings around them to shake and rattle.

"What the hell was that?" Maria asked of no-one in particular as the two of them looked around for the source.

There was a moment where the whole world seemed to inhale, and the screams of Manhattan's commuters came echoing up from the subway stairs. Both detectives cast one another an alarmed glance before running across the street, signals be damned, to get to the scene.

Scores of people were pouring out into the street and by the time Maria and Theodor got to the subway entrance they had to fight against the crowd. Theodor raised his badge high above everyone's heads as though it could clear a path for them by magic.

"Police! Let us through!" he called out, his voice cutting through the din.

A path was not cut for them, but people did seem less inclined to be in their way, and Theodor was able to bully his way down the subway tunnel with Maria in his wake.

What they found was the aftermath of a home-made bomb left under a bench in a back pack. The air was heavy with smoke and dust, with debris scattered around the blast site. The station had been crowded with the early evening commuters all making their way home, creating a perfect storm of worst-case scenarios.

"Tend to the wounded and call for back-up," Theodor said to Maria as he began performing a sweep of the area for anything else that might have been rigged to detonate on a delayed charge. He rushed to secure the scene as best he could, pacing round the area to try and find anything useful. There might not be any suspects, but there was still evidence to be collected amidst the destruction. Part of the ceiling fell on him, which was most irritating.

* * *

While Theodor filled out his reports by lamp light later that night, Maria stood behind him, picking bits of concrete from his not even close to regulation-length blond hair and tending to several small cuts on the back of his neck.

"You should be doing your reports," Theodor said, letting her twist his head this way and that.

"You should be more careful when attending scenes," Maria snapped. "When I say to use your head, I don't mean literally."

Theodor huffed out a small laugh. "I did not know to expect more tiles to fall," he protested. "It has been a long while since I have seen anything quite like that. Not since I was still a rookie."

Maria sighed as she used a sterile wipe to clean a shallow cut. "Tell me about it," she agreed. "I still can't believe it happened. You know they took all the trash cans out of the train stations in London because of that?"

Theodor thought about this with a frown. "Where do the people throw their trash?" he asked.

"I don't know. Throw it on the ground?" Maria ventured. "I bet they make a fortune on littering fines."

Theodor laughed in earnest this time. "I feel sorry for those whose job it is to clean the train stations there." He signed off on his report and slid it into the folder on his desk. "I am going to talk with the consultant; see if he has heard anything. He has a way with such things."

Maria shook her head and stepped away from Theodor to throw away the used wipes and their wrappers. "You're on your own with that one. I can't stand him."

"I thought as much," said Theodor as he pulled his hair back into a neat ponytail. "I will call you if he has anything useful to say to me."

* * *

Tony Stark's apartment sat on the top of an Upper West Side building, overlooking Riverside Park. Theodor was let in, as always, by a man who presented himself as the building's doorman, though Theodor had his doubts as to who actually employed Edwin Jarvis. At the door to the apartment, he was met by a woman he did not recognise.

"He's in his Batcave," she said, pointing toward the back of the apartment. "Come on. I'll take you through."

Theodor followed her in, shutting the door behind himself. "You knew I came here for Tony?" he asked.

"Jarvis," his host told him, as though it explained everything.

Which it did, once Theodor thought about it. Tony Stark always seemed to know more than he should have, and it made sense for him to have spies all over New York, including employing his door man to feed him information.

"I'm Pepper, by the way," Theodor's host said as she led him through the apartment. "That's an interesting accent you have. What is that? Swedish?"

"Danish," Theodor corrected. "My family moved to New York when I was a boy."

Tony was in the part of the apartment Pepper had called the Batcave, sitting at a large table which was covered with assorted metals and electronic components. Theodor had seen the room many times before, but the mess that decorated it was always new.

"And yet, you still haven't figured out how to use a contraction. Amazing," he said without looking up from what he was building.

Theodor ignored Tony's attempt at humour and approached the table. Behind Tony, a police scanner chattered away, telling any who could listen to it all of the area's dirty little secrets. Theodor frowned at him, suddenly changing his mind about coming to see Stark in the first place.

"I thought I took that away from you," he said, pointing at the police scanner.

"Got a new one," Tony replied simply. "They're not exactly hard to find."

This was an old argument, so Theodor dropped the subject for the time being, turning his attention instead to the gadget Tony was busy building.

"Is this thing new as well?" he asked, bending to peer at the complex circuitry Tony was soldering.

"Yep. Tournament's in two months. I'm hoping to have this one done by then, 'cause I don't think the Mark Six can take another pounding like it did last year." Tony didn't look up. "Mark Seven's got an upgraded casing that should be able to hold back that little pickaxe bastard this time."

Theodor couldn't help but chuckle. Tony could have any job he wanted in robotics or engineering, but instead he chose to treat it as a barbaric hobby and play the role of a private detective in his professional time. Every summer, he would become unavailable for a week, regardless of any other obligations, while he flew to San Francisco to enter his robots into a tournament against other robot builders.

"Is this about the bombing at Bleecker Street?" Pepper asked curiously, watching from the other side of the table.

Theodor looked up at her with concern. She looked back, innocently.

"I'm pretty sure it was on the news," she said. "By now, anyway."

"I like to get my news straight from the source," Tony said as he cleaned his soldering iron and put it in its cradle.

"I know," Theodor said, eying the chattering police scanner. "And yes. I came to ask if you have heard anything."

"I've heard lots of things." Tony got to his feet and moved towards the kitchen. "Nothing you haven't, though. That's not really my area. You know that. In fact, I seem to recall you telling me that about once a week."

He poured himself a measure of scotch and offered Theodor one of the same, only to have the offer declined.

"I do," said Theodor. "But I always get the impression you don't listen."

Tony shrugged. "I get a lot of mixed signals from you. One minute, you're cock-blocking me on all the good stuff, and the next, you're hounding me for information you can't find on your own. Make up your mind."

"No, that is Captain Rogers," Theodor corrected, with the ghost of a smile. "I only take away your toys when you use them to get in the way."

Tony looked at him over the edge of his glass. "And you'll lose your job if he catches you here, right?" he asked. "Yeah, I've heard that one before, too."

"Right," said Theodor. It was plain he wasn't going to get anywhere with Tony, which generally meant the impossible little man honestly didn't have any information, rather than just holding out on him for the sake of a laugh. Staying in his apartment any longer than necessary would only result in a brawl of some sort. "I see. You will contact me should you hear anything?"

It wasn't so much a request, and Tony knew it. "Sure thing, buddy," he said. "Anything you say."

Theodor nodded. "Thank you."

He offered a friendly smile to Pepper and saw himself out, giving the funny doorman a scrutinising glance as he reached the pavement. Being a security building, the place had no need of a doorman or a security guard, but Theodor was pretty sure he couldn't arrest him On Suspicion Of Possibly Not Being A Doorman, so he made tracks to return to the station.


	2. Chapter 2

Lukas rang the buzzer, not entirely sure what to expect. It was half eleven. He'd set his watch to New York time while on the boat and never bothered checking it again since leaving the harbour. And now he was ringing buzzers at ridiculous hours, hoping to talk his way into bunking up for the night.

He was just about to give up and find a bus stop with a shelter when the intercom buzzed back and a tired, crackling voice asked what he wanted.

Five minutes later, Lukas was standing in a modest apartment whilst Erik Selvig busied himself with making a quick sandwich. Even before Lukas first came to America at the age of six, he had always known Erik as an uncle, despite not having any sort of blood tie to his parents.

Now, Erik was shooing him out of the way and guiding him to the table as though he were still eight years old.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Erik asked.

Lukas took the seat offered to him. "Yes. And more. It was… what I needed, I think."

Erik finished building the late-night supper and put it down in front of Lukas, who until that moment hadn't realised just how hungry he was.

"Good," he said honestly. "I'm glad to hear that you worked everything out. Are you back for good, or is this just a visit?"

Lukas tried to answer, but when he couldn't swallow quickly enough, he shrugged instead.

"Well, I don't have a spare room for guests, but the couch is yours for as long as you need it," Erik said. "You're always welcome here."

Lukas nodded. "Thank you."

Erik drummed his fingers on the table, not sure what to say after having not seen Lukas for so long. "So… Were you in Denmark the whole time, or…?"

Lukas shook his head, taking time to swallow another bite. "No. I found what I was looking for, and then I found other things."

Erik accepted this sort of answer with a shrug. Lukas had never been particularly straight-forward with anything, but Erik knew that trying to pry would only ever unleash a string of lies.

"What about your brother?" he asked. "Have you seen him yet?"

It was Lukas' turn to give a slight pause. "I only arrived today. I would appreciate if you did not tell him I have come here."

A suspicious look from Erik drove him to continue.

"I would just prefer to, ehh, surpass him? No…" As soon as he said it, he knew it wasn't the right word.

"Surprise him?" Erik tried..

"Yes! It's been a while since I had to use English," he said, allowing himself a small laugh.

Erik laughed along with him. "That's all right. You're doing pretty good. And you've been gone for a long time."

There was a light silence between them for a moment while Lukas finished his sandwich and Erik busied himself tidying the kitchen.

"So, what are we calling you these days?" he asked finally. "Last time I saw you, you were still pretty upset about… everything."

Lukas took a brief moment to think about his answer. "Laufeysen."

"Laufeysen," Erik echoed back, nodding. "All right."

He got to his feet and walked round the table to a small cupboard in the sitting room. As he passed Lukas, Erik lightly patted his shoulder.

"Well, Loki Laufeysen, I'm off to bed. The remote's by the couch, if you want to watch some TV. Just try not to be too loud, OK?" He took a blanket from the cupboard and put it on the sofa as he made his way back to the bedroom.

Lukas nodded and thanked him. He waited until Erik was behind the closed door before pulling his mobile from his coat pocket, reading the text messages and responding to a few of them.

* * *

Theodor stood in front of the wall, studying the photographs. It had been three days since Bleecker Street Station exploded, so he didn't really expect to find anything new. But what else could he do? He had no leads and only photos of the aftermath and grainy security footage stills in which to search for them. The only thing the division knew was that the explosion wasn't the work of a suicide bomber. Stills from the cameras showed a man placing a back pack in a corner and walking away. Nothing could be seen of his features, despite his lack of any sort of mask or scarf. All he wore to hide his face was a ball cap, which he wore in an entirely inconspicuous manner. Soon after, he walked away, keeping off all the cameras, and five minutes later Bleecker Street exploded.

The only thing Theodor could be sure about was that this was not the first time their faceless suspect had placed such a device.

Theodor was waiting for one of the junior detectives to finish spooling through the last week's batch of security footage from the station when Captain Rogers strode into the room.

"Odinson," he announced. "Just got it in. Senator Kelly's been shot outside his house."

Theodor looked up sharply. "Do you think this is related?"

Rogers shook his head. "Officially, no. But I want you on it anyway," he said. "Take Hill and get down there."

Theodor didn't need to be told twice. He rushed out of the room to fetch Maria and grab a car from downstairs.

Senator Robert Kelly divided his time between Manhattan and Washington, and had long been the subject of threats from the myriad groups he had managed to piss off and offend over the years. Even so, Theodor didn't see how his shooting would be related to Bleecker Street.

He and Maria arrived at the building in Washington Heights as the paramedics were loading the senator into the back of an ambulance. They showed their badges to the officer at the perimeter, ducking under the tape that separated the scene from the crowd gathered on the pavement. There was still blood on the ground, which several of the looky-loos round the scene continually tried to sneakily photograph under pretext of texting.

"Just take their phones," Maria said under her breath. "CSI won't even need to come down here."

Theodor answered with an exasperated shake of his head.

"You the guys from Special Investigation?" a uniformed officer asked as the two of them approached.

"Yeah," said Maria, holding up her badge. "What can you tell us?"

"We think the shot came from that building there," said the officer as he pointed across the street. "We got guys in there now. We're still waiting on ballistics, but this guy's definitely no pro. Took him at least two shots, but we got a few witness reports saying they heard up to four."

Maria looked at Theodor. "Go check it out?" she asked. "I'll see what I can find down here while we wait for ballistics."

"Right you are, Watson," Theodor grinned. Maria rolled her eyes at him as he crossed the street to the adjacent building.

The ground floor was a small grocery, which the police had closed off for the remainder of the scene investigation. The proprietor, a small, balding man, shouted and railed at the officers in the shop. Theodor wasn't sure at first, but something about the way the man spoke sounded almost Norwegian. He broke off from the other officers and approached the man.

«Hullo. Excuse me. Perhaps we could talk?» he asked. «Just the two of us.»

The man spun round to face Theodor so quickly that he knocked a few magazines from the shelf he was standing next to.

«Yes,» he replied, clutching his hair. «I'm losing money every minute you and your people have my doors closed.»

He bent to pick up the magazines and return them to the rack. Theodor helped. He understood the shop owner well enough that he thought he might be able to defuse the situation, so as he set the magazines in their place he pointed at the street.

«Someone was shot, just outside,» he said. «You probably heard it. We think the person who did it might have been upstairs.»

The man's eyes went wide as he quickly moved behind the counter. «I don't own the building.»

«That's not what this is about. We don't want to have just anybody coming in or out,» Theodor explained. «Not until we know whether or not he was here. We need your help to do that quickly. Can you help us with that?»

The shop owner looked from Theodor to the other officers and pointed toward the ceiling. «You think he was up there?»

«Maybe, yes,» Theodor said. «We just need to keep everything closed until we take a look. You have a back door to this place, yes? May we take a look?»

The man nodded in acquiescence, and Theodor smiled.

«Thank you,» he said.

Theodor re-joined the other officers as they searched the back rooms of the shop and the corridor that led to the main parts of the building.

"We've been fighting with that guy for the last half hour," Sitwell said. "You're like, the scary old guy whisperer."

Theodor blinked at that. "I was not whispering," he said as he checked the heavy metal door at the back of the room. "You just have to know how to talk to people. Most do not wish to be in the way, just as they do not wish us to be in theirs."

Sitwell peered behind a crowded shelf. "I guess it was lucky we found the one angry little Danish guy in the neighbourhood, then."

"He is not Danish," Theodor said as he tested one of the doors. "He is Norwegian, but the languages are similar enough that we can talk to one another. You would have to go to Harlem to find an angry Danish man in a shop."

Finding no sign of a jammed or broken lock on either of the back doors, the team retreated back to the pavement to take the resident entrance into the building.

«Thank you,» Theodor said to the shop owner. «We would like to keep someone in here while we go through the rest of the building, but we should be done shortly.»

The man nodded again but said nothing. Theodor pointed at one of the uniformed officers accompanying him in a silent command to watch the back entrance.

Back out on the pavement, Theodor watched as the CSI team got set up across the street. Casting a glance skyward, he walked through the building's front door and up the steps to the resident housing. The first two storeys had already been cleared and had officers on watch, so Theodor and Sitwell went straight up to the third floor. As they reached the landing, someone called out to him.

"Sir!" Another officer made quick tracks down the corridor. "I think we found something. Empty unit where the lock was forced."

"Show me," Theodor said.

The officer led the two of them down the corridor to a flat facing Kelly's building. As Theodor stepped into the unit, he was overwhelmed by the heavy stench of rich tobacco. Making a small noise of disgust, he moved into the room and made his way toward one of the windows facing the street. As he pulled on a pair of gloves, Theodor crouched down next to the window, looking at a small pile of cigarette ash that hadn't quite made it all the way out of the room.

He pointed down at it and looked up at Sitwell. "Could you collect this before the wind does?" he asked.

He moved aside enough to let Sitwell work and peered out the window. Curling his fingers into a loose circle, Theodor peered through his hand to simulate a rifle's scope and surveyed the scene below. By now, there were three tags marking each of the bullet holes to strike the front wall of Kelly's building, each of them within a perfect line of sight from the window.

"Where was Kelly going when he was shot?" Theodor asked.

"Uh. Lunch meeting, according to the driver," Sitwell said as he sealed and labelled the small plastic bag. "Apparently, he doesn't keep much of a schedule when he's in town."

"Was the room swept before I arrived?" Theodor asked, looking around the ground by his feet.

"No, we just found it before you two came up," the other officer in the room said. "Our guy's long gone by now if you ask me."

Theodor didn't admit as much, but he agreed with the kid's assessment. Not finding what he was looking for on the floor, he leaned out the window to check along the ledge. Below him, he saw Maria crossing the street. Theodor wrenched his phone from its case on his belt and hit the speed dial for Maria's number.

"Our suspect is a smoker," he said as soon as she answered. "Check the pavement. Quick!"

He rushed out of the room and down the stairs to join Maria on the pavement. She was already scanning the area on the pavement and nearby street, and Theodor quickly joined her.

"He was leaning out the window. I think he might have been waiting for a few hours," he said.

Maria paused to look up at him. "Maybe someone saw him."

"If we're lucky, he may even have been caught on camera."

As he looked around the area to see if there were any cameras that might have been recording the area, Maria barked in triumph. Using two pens, she picked up the cigarette butt from the ground and slipped it into a small evidence bag. A few moments later, she found two more and bagged those as well.

"I told you those books would be worth your time," she said. "Next, you'll be hooked on House." She rustled the baggie triumphantly. "And if anyone's Watson, it's you. I've been here longer. You were assigned to me, remember?"

Theodor shrugged. "But I am the one to have just completed an analysis of tobacco ash."

She raised a brow at him as she sealed the evidence bag. "You're an expert on tobacco ash now?" she asked.

Theodor shook his head. "No. But it smelled like my father in here," he said. It was several moments before he noticed the look Maria was giving him. "He smoked until the day he died. He always smelled like that. He would go all the way to New Jersey to get the things."

"What took him?" Maria asked.

"Lung cancer," he answered. "But I believe this person may not be as inexperienced as first response thinks. The room reeked, but I had to search for any trace of anyone smoking in there. He was leaning out the window. He just missed some of the ash on the ledge. Most likely from just before he spotted Kelly."

Maria nodded her understanding. "Well, let's see about those cameras then, Sherlock. Then we'll see if you're as good as you think you are."

There were six cameras in view of the building from various angles. None of them was aimed at the windows, and three of them were closed-circuit or had already dumped the video files by the time the appropriate security office had been contacted.

Two of them had various fire escapes in frame, but only one had recorded the footage. Maria and Theodor stood in the small security office as the guard on duty wound the footage to the time of the shooting. The video was low-quality, choppy and without sound, but it was enough for Theodor to recognise what he could see of the man who ran down the fire escape with a heavy knapsack.

"Wait!" he said as the man darted out of the frame. "Can you put that back and freeze the image?"

"Sure." The security guard rewound the footage and froze on the suspect as he leapt down from the ladder, his face entirely obscured by his hat.

Maria and Thor looked at one another for a moment before looking back at the image on the small screen.

"The cases are related," Theodor said finally.

"That's the same guy," Maria agreed. "That, or there's a new dress code for criminals, because that's the same hat and jacket from Bleecker Street."

Theodor nodded to the security guard. "We need a copy of this," he said.

"You got it, pal."

While he copied the footage to a CD, Maria and Theodor turned their attention back to the screen with apprehension.


End file.
